“Why, you’re never going to drive me, Willie, are you?” asked Joan in alarm, for she remembered the tale of that youth’s equestrian efforts. “Yes, I am, though. Don’t you be skeered. I know what you’re thinking of; but I’ve been grocer’s boy for a month now, and have learned all about hosses and how to ride and drive them. Come, up you get, unless you’d rather walk behind.” Thus adjured, Joan did get up, and they started. Soon she perceived that her fears as to Willie Hood’s powers of driving were not ill-founded; but, fortunately, the animal that drew them was so reduced in spirit that it did not greatly matter whether any one was guiding him or no. “Is _he_ all right again?” said Willie presently, as, leaving the village, they began to travel along the dusty road that lay like a ribbon upon the green crest of the cliff. “Do you mean Captain Graves?” “Yes: who else? I saw him as they carried him into the Crown and Mitre that night. My word! he did look bad, and his trouser was all bloody too. I never seed any one so bloody before; though, now I come to think of it, you were bloody also, just like people in a story-book. That was a bad beginning for you both, they say.” “He is better; but he is not all right,” answered Joan, with a sigh. Why would every one talk to her about Henry? “Captain Graves is not here now, you know.” “No; he’s up at the Hall. And the old Squire is dead and buried. I went to see his funeral, I did. It was a grand sight—such lots of carriages, and such a beautiful polished coffin, with a brass cross and a plate with red letters on it. I’d like to be buried like that myself some day.” Joan smiled, but made no answer; and there was silence for a little time, while Willie thrashed the horse till his face was the colour of his hair. “I say, Joan,” he said, when at last that long-suffering animal broke into a shuffling trot, which caused the dust to rise in clouds, “is it true that you are going to marry him?” “Marry Sir Henry Graves! Of course not. What put that idea into your head, you silly boy?” “I don’t know; it’s what folks say, that’s all. At least, they say that if you don’t you ought to—though I don’t rightly understand what they mean by that, unless it is that you are pretty enough to marry anybody, which I can see for myself.” Joan blushed crimson, and then turned pale as the dust. “No need to pink up because I pay you a compliment, Joan,” said Willie complacently. “Folks say?” she gasped. “Who are the folks that say such things?” “Everybody mostly—mother for one. But she says that you’re like to find yourself left on the sand with the tide going out, like a dogfish that’s been too greedy after sprats, for all that you think yourself so clever, and are so stuck-up about your looks. But then mother never did like a pretty girl, and I don’t pay no attention to her—not a mite; and if I was you, Joan, I’d just marry him to spite them.”